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As he often is, Mr. Trunten is 1000% right!  And not just about the "Doom" guy.  I've often thought it is crazy that there is an Uploader line right next to the Author line, but I've complained enough to management over the years enough. I figured after a while other people might be more influential than me in getting things to change.

In fact one of the reasons I decided during my modding career I'd put things on Steam too was there are so many thieves on this website (and the Steam Workshop), that I figured if I didn't put mods in both places some **** would either steal one of my mods (somebody tried to a while back, but was caught) or they'd create derivative works from them without permission.

I think "management" should really crack down on these people, in part because it discourages people from becoming modders in the first place.  Another reason is it can lead to some retiring even though they don't have to.

Trunten, AlfredENeuman, personally I think removing Uploader or Author field is a bad idea. There have to be a distinction between uploader and author of the mod because they are two different things. Uploader is the person who added mod to the website and may or may not be the author. Author is who created the mod. Removing one of this fields will actually cause misleading who is the real author of the mod and who is the uploader. In case of PlayGamesTM, he cant add his name in Author field, only name of original authors of the campaign. And issue with putting authors in description is that people like PlayGamesTM will not do it anyway. Other modding websites have Uploader and Author fields too and it works great. 

Problem here is somewhere else. Unassertive moderation. What I mean is that staff have to be assertive and harsh towards people like PlayGamesTM. What should happen now to this guy is two weeks gag aka two weeks block from uploading. One more situation like this and permanent ban. As for DOOM777777789, he should be gagged permanently aka blocked from posting. Most important that there have to be someone dedicated to this issues and who will deal with this situations asap. 

"I think "management" should really crack down on these people, in part because it discourages people from becoming modders in the first place.  Another reason is it can lead to some retiring even though they don't have to."
Finally someone who shares my opinion.🤝

Well, I'm glad you partially agree with me (regarding the need for a serious crackdown.)  I think your idea of this website hiring a "cop" to enforce the rules is a great one and I hope it happens.

Frankly, it has always puzzled me why websites allow people other than the author(s) or mods to upload anything, because there's no way to know if the author(s) gave permission for that upload (and they probably did not.)  Why in the world would anyone have permission to upload the work of others, unless that someone is one of the co-authors?  And many mods have just one modder that created them.  So, basically if an uploader isn't the author or co-author of a mod THEY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO UPLOAD ANYTHING!

One reason there's so much mod theft on the Internet is so many people are uploading the work of others.  And if they get their hands on GCFScape (which is easy), they can steal mods with impunity.  

I think they allow it because it's something you cant control. Its better to distinguish who is who instead of someone impersonating original author. 

In my opinion having permission to upload not your mod depends on the intensions, but definitely shows a respect and appreciation for original author as well as the mod. 

Thanks for the support Trunten.

I thought those mods looked familiar!  Now I know why.

I must say I'm shocked at Funreal's actions.

For the different fields for uploader & author, I think I agree with greenhood. When I think about it, removing the author field could lead to other problems, like proper credits to the author, & some people could easily make an excuse like forgetting to write the credits & then adding them on file description. on the plus point, the author field could help direct to any mods related to the author (I usually use this to browse the mods by certain authors when I don't know the name of the author yet, like for example, the old 12-map "Silent Hill" has several uploaders & only the author field helps find "Leafo", the original author).

As for the topic of reporting theft, actually I still find few problems when trying to report someone, because of the author field too (minus point of author field). For example, like this: Someone uploaded a mod from workshop by other author & put his name as the author, but he also put the author's name on the file description. I classify this one as "grey" case, as I have no idea how to take an action (Should I report? But he put the author's name on the file description. Shouldn't I? But he put his own name as the author on the author field).

The other "grey" case is when the uploader quickly changes the author field & description after someone reminds him about crediting. This one can only be solved by directly contacting the author & confirming whether it's a theft or not. But this also takes lots of efforts to contact different authors if there come cases when the uploader rapidly uploads contents from different authors at once by requests (some people might know whom I'm talking about). & this requires some active members/ staff monitoring & crosschecking the workshop & at the same time contacting the authors for the suspected thefts.

So, for me, the serious problems that the admin & staff might need to look for solutions are the "grey" cases. If the theft is a "black" case or in other words, the thief being caught red handed, reporting shouldn't be difficult, as we can list the links where the thief stole & the comments if the author came to complain as the proofs (before the uploader deletes the author's complaints of stolen content), so admin & staff would be able to investigate easily. But if it's "grey" case, like I mentioned above, it requires active monitoring, crosschecking & contacting before taking an action. Probably it would need more manpowers or some other solutions.

Anyway for the stolen contents, I think the admin & staff already solved some recent thefts fast enough. Busan was given back to the original author, the "Rocker Zoey" & friends were removed, & "The Exempt" was also removed. I hope that they will always be fast like that in the future, in taking actions on stolen contents.

As for the topic of reporting theft, actually I still find few problems when trying to report someone, because of the author field too (minus point of author field). For example, like this: Someone uploaded a mod from workshop by other author & put his name as the author, but he also put the author's name on the file description. I classify this one as "grey" case, as I have no idea how to take an action (Should I report? But he put the author's name on the file description. Shouldn't I? But he put his own name as the author on the author field).

In this example that someone is breaking Gamemaps rules so you can report him. He didnt add original author to Author field so it doesn't really matter if he added it in description. If he added original author to Author field then it would be fine.
After all thats what Author field is for...to add who is the author of the mod.

@greenhood: my doubt & confusion about that actually have a reason. When visiting L4D2 section, you'll find some uploaders doing what I mentioned above, like putting themselves as the authors in author field but at the same time putting credits to the author in the file description. As I've been observing so far, from months ago or even last year, the admin & staff didn't take an action on that kind of uploader, so that's why I saw it as a "grey" case. Probably the admin & staff might also have some thoughts so they let the "grey" case as it is for now. & as long as the "grey" cases are still there, reporting the "grey" thiefs would be much more difficult than reporting those who deliberately upload without even considering in writing the author's name.